


【12/03】

by goukyorin (sashimisusie)



Category: Persona 4
Genre: Bad Ending, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-04 21:42:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 655
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5349614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sashimisusie/pseuds/goukyorin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Apologies won’t bring the roses back to her pale cheeks. Sympathy won’t fill that empty house with laughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	【12/03】

**Author's Note:**

> [“ Throw the bastard in. ”](http://foggiest-idea.tumblr.com/post/134512331096/1203)  
>  Header image is from Vol 10 of the Persona 4 manga.

In the end, it’s Yukiko who ends up leading him from the room.

Still and silent, each step away from the hospital bed on autopilot, he barely registers the concern that rains down to puddle around him. Souji’s heart is the flat line of the iced-over Samegawa, his mind an echo chamber to the shrill screech of the monitors in the room behind him. His hands know only the shape of Nanako’s, wrists thin and light as the birds that alight by the windowsill in springtime, and he  _promised_ , they all promised to play with her when she got better.

There’ll be no more springs for the child of the green grass and sun-dappled flowers.

“Souji,” Yosuke begins, his voice the first to register at long last. There’s a tremor Souji’s never heard in it, and he finds he can’t tell whether it’s sorrow or anger. “Souji, I’m so sorry.”

But apologies won’t bring the roses back to her pale cheeks. Sympathy won’t fill that empty house with laughter.

He wonders, fingertips numb with cold anxiety, whether it’s selfish of him not to go to Dojima-san’s side, but he can’t find the strength to move his feet from the single tile he’s occupied in the hallway. Has it always been so hard to unclench his hands? The knuckles on his hands ache and just maybe, maybe if he squeezes them tight enough, the stopper of his fists will stem the flow of whatever unnamed emotion is from welling up and over.

There should be a facade for this, some physical manifestation for the ice slowly spreading to freeze over the sea of his soul but the cards come up empty. After all, it’s not like there’s a handbook on how to cleanly excise your heart from the veins and arteries supplying it with blood and make it through the day alive.

Step one, don’t. Step two, look at step one, and something like hysteria burbles in the acid-pit maze Souji’s stomach has decided to become.

“ Throw the bastard in. ”

He wants to kick back his head and howl with laughter when interrogation turns to talk of murder. The culprit’s been just out of their reach the entire time, but now he has Namatame’s hospital gown balled up in his grasp. One push, one shove, and they wash their hands in cold blood with no one else the wiser. And why shouldn’t they appoint themselves judge and jury while leaving the man’s shadow as executioner?

"It’s justice,” Souji breathes, the line of his mouth mirroring Izanagi’s blade. The long arm of the law means little in the TV world, and he can see Naoto’s head duck down ever-so-fractionally in agreement. Rise is not so quick to side with him, lip trembling.

"We can’t just leave him, but is revenge really right–?”

Sharply," The police have no power here, but we do.  _There is no other way._ ”

There’s a golden-eyed sharp-toothed part of Souji that snarls in frustration when Namatame barely struggles and single forceful shove is all it takes. He’d wanted a  _fight_ , primal aggression and desire rearing its ugly head until reality comes horribly and suddenly down. They’ve just given a man the noose with which to hang himself, and nudged the chair out from under him.

“That guy’s as good as dead,” Yosuke says, gaze flinty and avoidant. His palms are on Souji’s shoulders, tactile comfort strangely cold. Perhaps he’ll never feel again, if he’s lucky. “Good riddance too.” 

"Yes,” Souji says, the bitterness of bile at the back of his throat overwhelming the sick twist of what feels like guilt in his stomach. “He’ll get what he deserves.”

The curtains flutter in the open window, and the feeling of being watched lingers on the back of his neck. Namatame will get what he deserves. This he knows, sinking under the cracked ice of his soul, and in the end, so too will they.


End file.
